VIDEO: Liquid tumor biopsies await prospective validation

MADRID – Assessing the genetic profile of tumor DNA circulating in a cancer patient’s blood is a potentially attractive way to track a tumor without the need for multiple tissue biopsies. The limitation of these liquid biopsies is that the clinical relevance of periodically assessing circulating tumor DNA has not yet been proven, Dr. Gerald Prager said during a video interview at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress.

“We need to perform clinical trials to know what to do” with the information that comes from evaluating circulating tumor DNA, said Dr. Prager, an oncologist at the Medical University of Vienna.

“Should we change” a patient’s treatment based on genetic results “before we see disease progression? We have not answered that yet.”

Dr. Prager has been an adviser and consultant to Bayer, Roche, Amgen, Merck Serono, and Sanofi-Aventis.

[email protected]

On Twitter @mitchelzoler

MADRID – Assessing the genetic profile of tumor DNA circulating in a cancer patient’s blood is a potentially attractive way to track a tumor without the need for multiple tissue biopsies. The limitation of these liquid biopsies is that the clinical relevance of periodically assessing circulating tumor DNA has not yet been proven, Dr. Gerald Prager said during a video interview at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress.

“We need to perform clinical trials to know what to do” with the information that comes from evaluating circulating tumor DNA, said Dr. Prager, an oncologist at the Medical University of Vienna.

“Should we change” a patient’s treatment based on genetic results “before we see disease progression? We have not answered that yet.”

Dr. Prager has been an adviser and consultant to Bayer, Roche, Amgen, Merck Serono, and Sanofi-Aventis.

[email protected]

On Twitter @mitchelzoler

MADRID – Assessing the genetic profile of tumor DNA circulating in a cancer patient’s blood is a potentially attractive way to track a tumor without the need for multiple tissue biopsies. The limitation of these liquid biopsies is that the clinical relevance of periodically assessing circulating tumor DNA has not yet been proven, Dr. Gerald Prager said during a video interview at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress.

“We need to perform clinical trials to know what to do” with the information that comes from evaluating circulating tumor DNA, said Dr. Prager, an oncologist at the Medical University of Vienna.

“Should we change” a patient’s treatment based on genetic results “before we see disease progression? We have not answered that yet.”

Dr. Prager has been an adviser and consultant to Bayer, Roche, Amgen, Merck Serono, and Sanofi-Aventis.

[email protected]

On Twitter @mitchelzoler